The Columbus Affair: A Novel (12 page)

Tom laid the article down. He’d kept the clipping in his wallet for the past eight years.

A reminder of the end.

“What was your source for this article?” his boss asked him. “Please tell me there’s more to this than what has been uncovered.”

Robin Stubbs had not only been his editor, she was his friend. As the allegations against him gradually unfolded, she’d stuck by him. When a committee of former
LA Times
editors and reporters had been assembled to investigate the charge against him, he’d welcomed their action. He had nothing to hide
.

But the proof had betrayed him
.

“I can only say that what the committee found is wrong. Everything in this article is true.”

“That’s not going to do, Tom. Your source, Segev, doesn’t exist. The Israelis have searched. We searched. The Palestinian, Azam, had been dead for over a year before you supposedly interviewed him. That’s a fact. Come on. What’s going on here?”

The committee had reviewed all 1,458 stories he’d filed for the
Los Angeles Times
during his nineteen-year tenure. Nothing had raised a red flag except one
.

EXTREMISTS ON BOTH SIDES, OUT OF CONTROL

“I approved the use of your ‘unnamed settler,’ and other unindentified sources,” Robin said. “I stretched policy to the max on those. Now it’s my ass on the line here, too, Tom. This story is a lie. Nothing about it is true. There are no settlers preparing to attack. No mass conspiracy. Sure, there’s violence in the area, but not to the extent you reported.”

He’d personally conducted all of the interviews, face-to-face. His expense reports verified that he had indeed been physically present at the specified locations
.

But that wasn’t enough
.

“I’m telling you, Robin. I talked to Azam two months ago.”

“He was dead, Tom.”

A photo of Mahmoud Azam, shown to him, matched the man he recalled from their hour or so together in Hebron
.

But that man had not been Azam
.

“I told you years ago to audio-record things,” Robin said
.

But he hated tape recorders. Sources were far more forthcoming without a machine there, and the ones who insisted on being recorded were usually suspect
.

“You have my notes,” he said, as if that was good enough
.

“They’re fake, too.”

No, they weren’t. They accurately detailed exactly what he’d been told. But that didn’t matter if nobody believed him
.

His credibility as a reporter had given the explosive story legs, which explained why news organizations around the world ran it. The result had been a disruption of a new round of peace talks, ones that had been making progress. The Palestinian government, in a rare move, opened its files and allowed Israel to verify that the person supposedly quoted—Mahmoud Azam—had long been dead. Israel likewise cooperated and allowed Palestinian officials to be present as they searched for Ben Segev, who could never be found
.

The conclusions were inevitable
.

The reporter apparently made the whole thing up
.

“Tom,” Robin said, her voice low. “You’re not the only one who will be hurt by this.”

She’d worked for the
Times
over two decades, rising to editor of the international desk. She was respected in the industry, and her name had been mentioned for promotion to managing editor or publisher. She’d always watched his back
.

Trusted him
.

He knew that
.

“The committee has verified, beyond all doubt, that the story is a fabrication. Can you prove them wrong?”

Her question carried a plea
.

No, he could not
.

He stared at her
.

Husband number two had left a while back. No children. Only two dogs, a cat, and her career with the
Times.

Which was over.

A month after he was fired, Robin resigned.

He hadn’t tried to contact her. What would he say?
I’m sorry? It’s all wrong? I didn’t do it?

Who would believe that?

His four Pulitzer nominations and one win were revoked, his name stricken from the official records. All of his other journalism awards, whether won or nominated, were withdrawn. In its online archive the
Times
flagged every one of his stories with a warning, ensuring that though he’d filed 1,458 stories, 1,457 of which had been dead-on, the one in question would be his legacy. Other newspapers continued their investigations even after the
Times
stopped, attacking both him and his editors for their lackadaisical policies and sloppy management.

Especially Robin.

God help her.

She took a beating. Amazingly, she found work at a small community newspaper chain, but her name would forever be linked to his scandal. He often wondered how she was doing.

Would she have grieved at his death?

He stared at the bedroom ceiling. Outside, daylight faded. He should sleep, but a lot of ghosts had come to visit this day. More than he’d ever anticipated. His daughter. Abiram. His former boss. The past.

But only one questioned mattered.

When his gun was returned tomorrow, and after he made sure Alle was okay, should he finish what he started?

———

A
LLE TOTED HER SUITCASE OUT OF THE APARTMENT BUILDING
to a waiting car.

“Sure you would not like to stay?” Rócha asked, adding a nauseating smile. “We barely have spoken to each other.”

She slid her bag into the open trunk and wanted to know something. “Were you following me tonight? How did you know where I was?”

“I was doing my job. Which was to protect you.”

“Protect me from what?”

He wagged a finger at her. “You’re a most clever woman. You think you ask me enough questions, then I will answer. Mr. Simon told me he would speak with you about all of this once you are in Florida. My job is to safely deliver you to the airport, not to answer your questions.” Rócha opened the rear door for her to climb inside. “This man will drive you.”

She spotted Midnight behind the wheel and cringed.

“There’s nobody else who can drive me?” she asked.

“What? Still upset? He was playacting, like you. That’s all. Now you must hurry. Your flight leaves in two and a half hours. Please claim your ticket at the Lufthansa check-in counter.”

She brushed past him into the rear seat and he closed the door.

“A little kiss before you go?” Rócha asked through the open window.

She mustered the courage to display a single finger.

“I guess not. Do travel safe.”

The car eased down the narrow street, finding the avenue at the far end. There, Midnight turned left and they sped toward the airport.

Z
ACHARIAH COULD NO LONGER SLEEP
. T
HE SITUATION WITH
Alle Becket had raised too many concerns. Béne Rowe was far more ingenious than he’d ever imagined. Thankfully, as with Tom Sagan, he’d checked out the Jamaican.

Quite a character.

His mother was part Taino, part African, her roots extending back to the slaves imported to work the plantations. His father was African, as pure as a Jamaican slave descendant could get considering the amount of blood mixing that had occurred. Both of Rowe’s parents were Maroons, their ancestors runaway slaves who organized in the mountains and waged enough war on plantation owners that the British finally decided to make peace.

He’d studied the Maroons, trying to gain an understanding. The first slaves were brought to Jamaica by the Spanish in 1517 to supplement the native Tainos, who were dying out. The Africans became herdsmen, hunters, and farmers with a semi-free existence. They learned the land, becoming familiar with the dense, thickly wooded terrain. The Spanish and English fought for years, and the Africans allied with the Spanish. In 1660 the Spanish left the island forever, but the Africans remained, becoming the first Maroons. The English governor at the time predicted that they would one day become a great problem.

He was right.

They controlled Jamaica’s interior. Any colonist who dared to venture far from the coast paid a price.

More slaves came as sugarcane thrived. Revolts were common and many Africans escaped to the hills to join others already there. British farmers wanted the Maroons wiped out. There’d been a First Maroon War in 1731, and a second in 1795, which ended with several hundred tricked into deportation. Only a few families survived that purge, keeping to their mountain villages.

The Rowes were one of those.

Béne meant “Tuesday” in Maroon, the day of the week upon which he was born, per the naming tradition. Rowe came from a British plantation owner. Again, not uncommon, his background report had noted. Rowe hated his last name, a daily reminder of all his ancestors had endured. Though slavery ended on Jamaica in 1834, its memory still haunted. The island had been the last stop on the traders’ route from Africa, which began in South America, then headed north to the lower Caribbean, and finally west, to Jamaica. All of the best and most docile Africans were bought and gone by the time slavers docked in Kingston harbor. The result became a population of aggressive Negroes, some of whom were bold enough to both flee and war on their former masters. Nowhere else in the Western world had that successfully happened.

Béne Rowe was a direct by-product of that rebellious stock. His father had been a gangster, but smart enough to involve his family heavily in Blue Mountain Coffee. Béne was an astute businessman, too. He owned resorts throughout the Caribbean and controlled leases for several Jamaican bauxite mines, which American companies paid him millions per year to exploit. He held the title to a massive working estate in the Blue Mountains that employed nearly a thousand people. He was a man possessed of few vices. Which was surprising, given that he peddled so many of them. He despised drugs and drank only modest amounts of rum and wine. He did not smoke, nor were there any women in his life, beyond his mother. No children, either, not even the illegitimate kind.

His one obsession seemed Columbus’ lost mine.

Which was what had brought them together.

On his first voyage across the Atlantic, Columbus commanded three ships loaded with enough food and water for a year. He also
brought navigational equipment, trinkets for trade, ships’ stores, and three unmarked wooden crates. Room had to be made in the hold of the
Santa María
to accommodate them. They were loaded aboard by several of the crew who were
conversos
—Jews at heart, forced into a Christian baptism by the Inquisition. Unfortunately, the
Santa María
ran aground off the coast of Hispaniola on Christmas Day, 1492. Every effort was made at salvage, but the ship was lost, her cargo offloaded to the island. The three crates were buried, at night, by the admiral and his interpreter, Luis de Torres. That much was known for certain because, decades ago, his father had found documents, preserved in a private cache, that told the tale.

After that the story blurred.

The three crates disappeared.

And the legend of Columbus’ lost mine was born.

———

B
ÉNE WAITED FOR
H
ALLIBURTON TO EXPLAIN, THOUGH HE LIKED
the smile filling his friend’s tanned face.

“I hope these parchments aren’t now missing from the national archives,” Tre said to him.

“They’ll be kept safe. Tell me what they say.”

“This one that looks like a deed grant with wax seal is just that. For 420 acres. The land description is vague, they all were back then, but I think we can place it. Several rivers are mentioned as boundaries and those still exist.”

Eastern Jamaica was striped with hundreds of waterways that drained the nearly constant rain from the higher elevations to the sea.

“Can you actually locate the parcel?”

Halliburton nodded. “I think we might be able to. But that tract will look nothing like it did three hundred years ago. Most of it then was dense forest and jungle. A lot of clearing has occurred since.”

He was encouraged. Jamaica comprised nearly 11,000 square kilometers. The highest mountains in the Caribbean rose from its surface, and thousands of caves dotted its porous ground. He’d long
believed that any lost mine would have to be in the Blue or Jim Crow mountains, which consumed the eastern half of the island. Today some of that land was privately held—he himself was one of those owners—but most of it had become a wilderness national park controlled by the government.

“This is important to you, isn’t it?” Tre asked him.

“It’s important to Maroons.”

“It can’t be the possibility of wealth. You’re a multimillionaire.”

He chuckled. “Which we don’t need to advertise.”

“I don’t think it’s a secret.”

“This is not about money. If that cursed Italian found a mine, he was shown it by the Tainos. It was theirs. He had no right to it. I want to give it back.”

“The Tainos are gone, Béne.”

“We Maroons are the closest thing left.”

“You might actually have a chance to do that,” Tre said, motioning with the documents. “This one is unique.”

He listened as Halliburton explained about Abraham Cohen and his brother, Moses Cohen Henriques. In May 1675 the two apparently sued each other. The document Felipe stole from the archives was a settlement of that suit in which Abraham agreed to give Moses forty farm animals in return for watching over his Jamaican property during his absence.

“What makes this interesting,” Halliburton said, “is that no lower court handled the case. Instead, the island’s chief justice, its governor at the time, Thomas Modyford, recorded the decision.”

“Too small a deal for him to be the judge?”

“Exactly. Unless there was more involved. If I recall correctly, by 1675 the Cohens would have been in their seventies.”